Owen O'Neill, 29, proposed to Ellie Herbert, 24, over dinner in the romantic setting of the world famous restaurant on Monday night.

Next morning, as the whole world watched their television screens reveal the unfolding horror of the attacks on the twin towers, the couple, from Boston Avenue, were waiting at New York's JFK airport to return home.

Owen, a former member of Reading's Starmaker Theatre Company, works in Bristol but used to work as a waiter at TGI Friday's in Reading and at Marshall Honda on Bath Road.

Friend Dave Savage said the couple are still stranded in the United States.